Why Increasing Interaction Isn’t Enough

Online Events Archive

Online Forums 2013 - August 16, 2013

Barbara Hall, PhD

Assistant Professor
Ashford University

Peer interaction in eLearning falls along a continuum from substantive to irrelevant. Trainers, teachers, researchers, and even students have described peer-to-peer discourse as lacking sufficient value to support the intended outcomes of their eLearning environments. Despite an increasing focus on interaction, stakeholders still lament the low quality of peer discourse in eLearning.

Participants in this session will learn that interaction should not be our goal in designing and developing eLearning. Rather than interaction, which is a process, the real standard should be intersubjectivity—a big word to describe the simple concept of peers collaborating to acquire existing or develop new knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

In this session, you will learn:

The difference between simple interaction and complex intersubjectivity
What instructors, students, and researchers are saying about peer interaction
Why your learning objectives might require a higher standard of peer discourse
About an existing tool for assessing peer interaction

Handout(s)

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Recording

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